4/6 is cool for levellers, there's also just no actual reason to remove them as an option.

So, I sort of disagree with this a lot. My biggest issue is that IMO 4/6 is broken enough to warrant it unusable/unfair in sanctioned play. I feel it is too easily taken advantage of, and not conducive of building a league with quality play. Also, 4/6 would allow members to shoot up through trainer levels very quickly and potentially with little skill; this is a bad thing. I claim that 4/6 should be restricted to Exhibition matches only.

I make this suggestion fairly certain that it will be shot down without a whole lot of thought, but dammit I'm going to make it anyway.

So, I don't entirely understand why Pokemon that Mega-Evolve into X type, that were not originally X type, are outright not allowed in X Gym. I understand that we should not be letting a leader bring a Fire/Flying 'Zard into a Dragon Gym for some time without mega-evolving it, as well as understand that it equally isn't fair if that 'mon starts the match already mega-evolved.

But both of these issues are easily avoidable under the following clause: A gym leader, if bringing a Pokemon not originally of that leader's type that Mega-Evolves into a Pokemon of that leader's type, MUST Mega-Evolve it immediately upon sending it out.

To be fair we've kinda implemented a test on the subject in the E4. That said, as it's not yet been actually tested I don't think we should be attempting to implement it.

That's entirely fair, and I'm okay with that! I'm just trying to hear the reasons we didn't implement it in the first place. As far as I understand, the reasoning is essentially "Dragon doesn't need it." But from everywhere I looked, this was never really stated super explicitly, and it more or less boiled down to "eh we don't like it". But that's definitely reasonable!

Gym Leaders are meant to be beatable. Allowing this makes a Dragon Gym incredibly hard to surmount. Not only do they already have access to some excellent Pokemon, they would gain access to three (Charizard X, Mega Ampharos and Mega Sceptile) more, and the only one of these which isn't wildly useful to a Dragon Gym is Sceptile. Charizard X is neutral to Ice and Water, two types which give Dragon a run for their money, while Ampharos gets unlimited SE on the latter.

In my eyes this gives Dragon Gyms too much of a boon over the opposition when you consider the fact they will also have a Badge backing them up, as well as no doubt a number of arena effects. Even if we said they would have to immediately Mega Evolve, this doesn't really change the fact that the use of them would hand the Gym Leader even more of an advantage than they were already packing, and they're meant to inherently be the one with the disadvantage.

In theory it would give them too much boon. In practice, Kush went undefeated with the absence of mega pokemon. Dragons now have fairies to worry about, and have freeze dry to annoy Kingdra. The pokemon that Kush heavily relied on suddenly have to worry about a type that they don't even have enough coverage against under normal circumstances. If you want to beat a dragon gym today, your best bet is a couple of good fairies. One Mega Charizard X, and you are good to live another day against a smart trainer who will pack Clefable, Wigglytuff, Azumarill.

Hard counters for all of the megas mentioned are Flygon, and Gliscor. Soft counters for at least two of the megas would be Steelix, Mamoswine, Lapras, almost any ice type.

Adapt. That is what I can say to the trainer facing this new mechanic. As the opposing trainer, you will always know what mega you are going to face. If someone is going to bring two mega, state in their squad post which one is the one locked into evolving. There are good counters for all of the megas, and probably will be more in the upcoming gen.

In theory it would give them too much boon. In practice, Kush went undefeated with the absence of mega pokemon. Dragons now have fairies to worry about, and have freeze dry to annoy Kingdra. The pokemon that Kush heavily relied on suddenly have to worry about a type that they don't even have enough coverage against under normal circumstances. If you want to beat a dragon gym today, your best bet is a couple of good fairies. One Mega Charizard X, and you are good to live another day against a smart trainer who will pack Clefable, Wigglytuff, Azumarill.

Hard counters for all of the megas mentioned are Flygon, and Gliscor. Soft counters for at least two of the megas would be Steelix, Mamoswine, Lapras, almost any ice type.

Adapt. That is what I can say to the trainer facing this new mechanic. As the opposing trainer, you will always know what mega you are going to face. If someone is going to bring two mega, state in their squad post which one is the one locked into evolving. There are good counters for all of the megas, and probably will be more in the upcoming gen.

You're proving Connor's point here. You're heavily implying that one would need to be TL6 to beat a Dragon Gym which is not okay on more levels than I can count. That means something like a whopping 5 people in the league can fight that Dragon Gym on equal footing. Sure, Connor could probably beat a hypothetical Dragon Gym by packing Flygon, Clefable, Wigglytuff, Mega Altaria, and the like, but that doesn't make it as beatable as a gym should be. The way I see it, if the average TL4/5 (We'll use Miror or TKF for example) is completely hopeless against it, the Gym needs to be toned down in a big way. And I honestly don't think TKF can walk into the Dragon Gym we have hypothesized and have an even remotely good shot of coming out with a badge, regardless of which GL-level person we have is running it.

As you advance through the TLs, you naturally become a harder gym leader to face.

If gato were to get the gym at TL4, he doesn't have access to Mega Charizard, Mega Ampharos, or Mega Altaria unless he wants to risk disobedience.

At the TL5, you still miss out on multiple TL6 dragons, so you are limited to one, and you are yet able to get dragonite.

TL6, that's when you get the full access. So what if you get Charizard X? You are already good, its not going to make unbeatable but it will give you a well rounded team.

You shouldn't be looking to face this gym at lower TLs.

Having confidence in my skills, I was going to handle Charminion's Charizard-X with Lunatone. You can find creative ways to deal with the megas, they have counters or decent neutral matchups. You can probably do something well with Dunsparce. I just think its limiting to ban a great function that makes sense thematically, and its not a clutch for the gym leader to rely on these pokemon.

No see it doesn't make sense thematically either. There's no precedent in the games, anime, or even manga for a GL using a mon not of their type that then mega evolves into their type. The E4 is the only place it fits thematically, which I assume is why it's being tried there.

And the point of gyms is to be beatable. There shouldn't be a gym you have to be TL6 to beat, period. So when you put forth the argument that a slew of TL6 mon can counter the Dragon Gym.. I'm sorry that's just a bad argument.

While you're absolutely right, my point was even with idiotic things like that flying in the games/anime, Megas like that don't. Which should speak volumes about how poor an argument it is that it fits thematically.